


i want you more than i've wanted anyone

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, featuring fake!dating academy era style, lots of pining and mild angst i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-04 17:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interesting things happen when you end up sharing a hotel bedroom with your best friend in the world for an entire weekend. Interesting things such as unexpected, and incredibly inconvenient, feelings. </p><p>(Oh, and kissing. For practical purposes, of course.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. such good friends, it has to end, it always does

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper multi-chapter fic for Fitzsimmons and I'm pretty excited about this one! I've been working on it for a few months now and I'm hoping to post a chapter every other day if my drafting goes according to plan.
> 
> Essentially, this was just an opportunity for me to exploit all the overused fake dating troupes in existence, but I hope it's enjoyable in any case. The title for this story and all of the chapter titles come from this song 'Fools' by Lauren Aquilina. I hope you like this!

'He did it again.'

Jemma Simmons lifted her head from her immaculate set of chemistry notes and gave her best friend a sympathetic tilt of the head. 'Aw, Fitz.'

Then she frowned.

'Who did what?'

Leopold Fitz sat down heavily in his chair next to her. 'Agent Archer,' he grumbled, pulling his notepads out of his rucksack with a grunt. 'Cornered me on the way in and read me the riot act.'

Jemma made a face. 'Not the 'fraternisation within partnerships' speech again?'

'The very one!' Fitz sat up straight and put on his best impression of their teacher's Southern American drawl: '”Y'all know we ain't got no problem with a little fraternisin' as long as it ain't done on our time or S.H.I.E.L.D's.”'

Jemma pursed her lips together to keep herself from laughing as Agent Archer took his place at the front of the class and began explaining the problems he had set for homework. Fitz really did have his accent perfected.

'Honestly,' Fitz muttered, his eyes flitting rapidly from the whiteboard to his notebook, as he tried to keep up with their teacher's wild scrawling. 'I can't believe they still don't believe us when we say we're just friends. Even our own bloody classmates think there's something more than that going on between us. Imagine.'

'Imagine,' Jemma echoed.

But as soon as the word had left her mouth she realised that she had both her feet resting gently on the side of his stool and his elbow was touching the bare skin of her arm across the desk. Self-consciously, she twisted slightly to the side and pulled her feet away.

'Are you all packed for tomorrow?' she asked after a while, keeping her voice low.

The two of them had been chosen by their professors to attend the annual S.H.I.E.L.D academies convention weekend, where students from the Sci-Tech, Communications and Operations schools joined up at some swanky, top secret hotel to offer the other cadets a taster of life at the other academies. They had been the only two from their class to have been chosen, an honour that made Jemma feel tingles in the tips of her toes.

Fitz glanced sideways at her. 'Um...are you?'

'Of course.'

In fact, she had been packed since Monday, her suitcase neatly locked and standing to attention in the corner of her dorm, but he didn't need to know that.

'Oh.'

Fitz shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

Jemma rolled her eyes.

'I'll come around your dorm tonight and help you pack.'

He gave her an appreciative smile, and Jemma felt her heart jump a little in her chest.

It had been doing that a lot lately, making odd little skips when Fitz looked at her, or when his chest brushed against her back as he peered over her shoulder. It was a little alarming to say the least, and Jemma hoped there wasn't a genuine medical reason for it.

Maybe she would investigate more, if she ever came to dislike it.

 

 

'Do I _really_ need to take so many shirts?'

'Absolutely! For this kind of function, three shirts is a _minimum_.'

'Then why the hell are there _five_ shirts in my bloody case?'

Firmly, Jemma plucked the additional two shirts out of Fitz's exasperated hands and tucked them back in the suitcase. 'Because I don't do minimum.'

It was approaching nine o'clock at night and they had been packing for twenty two minutes precisely. Already, Jemma had had to remind Fitz he needed to pack trousers (at least two pairs) and had removed several miniature boxes of cereal from his case ('They _will_ be providing breakfast at the hotel, Fitz. I checked on the website.'). She shuddered to think how he must have coped at university, without either his mum or her to guide him in such simple things. She imagined it had involved a lot of creased shirts and missing toothbrushes.

Finally, they were able to click the case shut and heave it off the bed.

'You staying?' Fitz asked, as he kicked off his shoes and clambered up to the head of the bed. Jemma followed his lead, peeling off her cardigan and hugging a pillow to her chest.

'Just for a little while,' she said.

But as Fitz flicked between murder mysteries on the TV, and they argued back and forth over the logistics of the storylines, that little while turned into a long while. Before Jemma quite knew what was happening, Fitz was shaking her awake and it was approaching midnight and they were both half asleep on each other's shoulders.

'I'll see you in the morning then,' he yawned, peeling back his blankets and sliding into bed fully dressed.

Jemma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 'See you in the morning.'

The matron of Fitz's dorm was just doing her rounds as Jemma clicked Fitz's door shut, making sure that all her students were in bed by curfew. She raised her eyebrows as she saw Jemma leaving so late and Jemma felt a flush creep into her cheeks as she imagined what the matron must be thinking.

'I fell asleep,' she blurted out, then winced at how lame that sounded. 'I meant to leave earlier but I...I fell asleep.'

The matron seemed unimpressed and Jemma turned her back to scurry away to her own dorm, her face burning.

Really though, she scolded herself, did it matter what other people thought was going on between her and Fitz? Surely the most important thing was that they both knew they were just friends. Anybody else's opinion shouldn't really matter.

_Shouldn't_ matter. Not necessarily, _didn't_.

It was a long time before she fell asleep that night.

 

 

Jemma wouldn't have thought that the Academy would have a mini-bus. But as it turned out, apparently it did.

The next morning, she and Fitz, along with six other cadets from the years above them, packed into the black mini-bus with tinted windows and a tiny S.H.I.E.L.D logo on the driver's door that had pulled up outside the cadet halls. Agent Weaver drove them to the convention location, a pair of sunglasses perched precariously on the top of her head.

'I expect you all to be on your best behaviour,' she said as they drove. 'No bickering, no biting, no butchery and-' Here, she broke off to glare at Fitz in the rear-view mirror. 'No explosions.'

Fitz slunk lower in his seat next to her, and Jemma patted his knee comfortingly.

Somehow, even a year on, none of their teachers quite believed she too had been involved in creating that explosion. There were still scorch marks on the ceiling in the chemistry lab, which gave Jemma small stabs of guilt whenever she set foot inside.

Still, she thought, that was just another truth she could chalk up as them not believing about her and Fitz, right next to the truth that there honestly was nothing going on between them other than friendship. And that there really never would be anything else.

Not that she wanted there to be. Obviously.

 

 

They were sitting on their suitcases in the middle of the hotel lobby when it hit them: they were going to have to find themselves roommates for the weekend. The prospect of which was not exactly thrilling for either of them.

Fitz drooped his chin into his palm glumly. 'Uh...who d'you think you'll share with?'

Jemma's eyes skimmed the lobby quickly, searching among the cohorts of other cadets from the different academies for the two other sci-tech girls they had come with. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly when she saw them at the reception desk signing in for a room, laughing together. She swallowed.

'I suppose I'll have to wait and see what spaces are left,' she muttered, pressing her fingernails into the palm of her hand and clenching, as she tried to bite the rising wave of panic back.

It would only be for a weekend, she reminded herself. She could handle sharing with people she didn't know, people she wasn't comfortable with, for one weekend. Surely she could do that.

Watching her, Fitz frowned.

'What about you?' Jemma asked, tucking her hands into her lap to hide the marks her nails had made in the skin. 'Who will you share with?'

He shrugged, glancing around at the other cadets around them. They were quite obviously the youngest there, which under any other circumstances might have made Jemma feel incredibly smug; as it was, it only made her feel small, and vulnerable.

She watched as three male cadets walked past them, dressed from head to foot in black with dark aviator glasses on. Judging by their astounding muscle-to-fat ratio and minimum of six foot tall frames, she guessed they must have been from Operations.

Jemma watched as Fitz's face turned scarlet and he dropped his head to stare at the floor.

'Reckon I'll have to do the same as you,' he muttered once the Operations cadets had passed by.

Jemma sighed, and rubbed her palms together anxiously.

Over by the reception desk, she caught sight of a boy and a girl together, who appeared to be signing into a room. The logo on the back of the girl's hoodie told her that they were cadets. Jemma cocked her head, curiously.

The woman behind the desk gave the cadets their room keys and a smile, before waving them on their way.

A plan began to piece itself together in her brain, a desperate, spur of the moment plan which normally she would loath having to make but today was reluctant enough to suggest.

Jemma took a deep breath.

'Fitz?'

He glanced up at her. 'Yeah?'

'I think we should do it.'

Fitz frowned. 'Do what?'

'Share a room.'

He gaped at her, mouth open, for a moment and then shook his head. 'They'd never allow that, Simmons.'

'They let _them_.' Jemma nodded towards the now retreating boy and girl, their room keys swinging in between them.

Fitz's eyes followed them, and she could see him wavering, considering the idea as carefully as he would consider a mathematical equation. He looked back at her.

'You really want to do that?'

Jemma nodded emphatically.

'I mean,' she added quickly. 'It's not as if we haven't shared before...' Her words trailed off as her eyes fell upon Fitz's face and she faltered.

She had been thinking of the previous Christmas holiday, when she had gone back with him to his mum's instead of home to her newly separated parents.

Fitz and his mum lived in a two bedroomed cottage, which had meant that she had had to share his little box room, painted navy blue and filled with Doctor Who memorabilia (neither of which she had any objection to). Fitz's mum had insisted he let her sleep in his bed and so for the two weeks she was there he had been demoted to a blow up mattress on the floor, much to Jemma's weak protests. Every night, she had fallen asleep to the sound of his heavy breathing and the smell of his sheets.

She hadn't slept so well in years.

The memory of it made Jemma's heart beat a little faster, but she quickly suppressed the feeling to see how Fitz was reacting to her suggestion.

He was seriously considering it now; she could see the idea ticking over in his mind as he pressed his thumb to his lips pensively.

'And you really wouldn't mind?' he asked again after a moment, even though it had been her idea in the first place.

Jemma shook her head.

Abruptly, Fitz stood up, taking a deep breath in.

'Right. Let's give it a go then.'

The two of them hurried up to the registration desk, their cases' wheels clattering over the floor behind them. The receptionist glanced up as their matching shadows fell over her work.

'Can I help you?'

'Yes,' Jemma chirped, her fingers anxiously tapping on the front of the desk. 'We would, um, like to sign into a room please.'

The receptionist eyed them. 'Together?'

'Yes.' Jemma glanced across at Fitz, who nodded at her. 'Together.'

The receptionist nodded and her eyes dropped away from them, pulling out a couple of forms and a set of keys.

'And you two are a couple, yes?' she asked, without looking up at them.

Jemma froze.

It felt like she had been given a triple dose of dendrotoxin into her bloodstream, followed by a shot of fire through her veins. Her feet felt fixed to the floor and her mouth hovered, half open.

She looked up, quickly, locating the boy and girl from before. They were still in the lobby; the girl had sat down on her case again and was talking animately. The boy was looking at her like she had hung the moon in the sky and when she stopped talking for a second, he took the opportunity to reach down and press a chaste kiss to her lips.

Jemma swallowed, feeling all the blood drain from her body to gravitate on her cheeks. God, how could she have been so naïve? How embarrassing, now they would have to explain that...

'Yes.'

A startled squeak escaped from her lips and her head snapped up to gape at Fitz, who was looking at her with an expression just as surprised as she felt about the one word that had just slipped out of his mouth.

'Yes,' he repeated, still staring at her and looking slightly horror-stricken. 'Yes, indeed...we...we are indeed...that.'

Jemma could feel her mouth hanging open. She managed to pull it shut just as the receptionist brought her head up to gave them a cheery smile and a pen to sign their forms with.

Fitz signed first, giving Jemma a few extra seconds to recover and remember how to spell her own name. Even so, her fingers were shaking as she put pen to paper and she had to press extra hard to keep the pen from slipping out of her hand.

'And here are your keys...' The receptionist passed the two room keys to them over the desk; Fitz's fingers brushed over Jemma's as they picked them up and she had to suck in a breath. 'Enjoy your stay!'

Jemma managed a bewildered and wordless smile as she turned away from the desk, her heart hammering at a thousand beats a minute against her shirt. She dragged her case after Fitz in a daze, watching his feet move slower and slower until they turned a corner into a corridor.

'What the hell did you just do?' she asked as soon as she deemed it safe enough, her voice practically a whisper.

'Um.' Fitz scratched the back of his neck, wincing. 'I signed us into a room.'

'As a couple.'

'Well. Yes.'

'Which we are not.'

'Well. No.'

'Oh God,' Jemma groaned, covering her eyes with her hands, as if not being able to see would make the problem go away. 'Why on _earth_ did you do that?'

'I don't know!' Fitz burst out. 'I don't know, I panicked and it just came out!'

Jemma slid her hand down over her face to look at him. Fitz was biting his bottom lip and looking at her with desperation in his eyes.

'Look, I just knew that you didn't want to share with strangers and I certainly don't want to share with...with these _Adonises_ ,' he hissed the word as if it burnt, 'from Operations so it just...' He shook his head. 'It just seemed like the right thing to do.'

They had come to a halt in the middle of the corridor, half way between the lobby and the lifts to the bedrooms. Jemma's heart was beating at a more normal rhythm and now she was over the shock, she began to appreciate the sentiment of his gesture.

Fitz, who had always seemed so personally affronted whenever anyone assumed they were dating, had just personally volunteered them as a couple to stop her having to share with people she didn't know.

He had been looking out for the both of them. That was all.

For the second time in the past ten minutes, Jemma found to her horror that she was formulating another hasty, ill-prepared plan.

Fitz rubbed at his temples and sighed. 'We'll have to go back,' he said, decidedly. 'Tell them that it was a mistake, ask for a different room...' He turned on his heel back towards the reception, shoulders slumped.

Jemma sighed. 'Fitz, wait.'

He paused, and Jemma bit the inside of her cheek, unable to believe the words she was about to say.

'Maybe,' she said hesitantly. 'Maybe...this could actually work.'

Fitz blinked at her.

'People are always going to think we're a couple anyway. Maybe...maybe we're just saving them the time.'

'Are you saying you _want_ to pretend we're a couple?' Fitz seemed utterly baffled by the idea. 'Like an actual boyfriend and girlfriend couple?'

Jemma rolled her eyes. 'Well, if the idea _repulses_ you so much...'

'No! No, it's not that, it's just...'

'This way, we get to share with each other and besides, it's just for one weekend, isn't it?' She cocked her head at him. 'Think of it like a test.'

'A test?' Fitz asked, doubtfully.

'An experiment,' Jemma amended. 'The hypothesis being that we supposedly act like enough of a couple to actually pass as one. This weekend will show whether we can reject it as a null hypothesis or whether there is...' She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. '... _Some_ truth to it.'

Fitz was looking at her, his eyes searching and unreadable, which was rather disconcerting as she had gotten particularly good at reading him during their friendship. Jemma felt her cheeks grow hot under his gaze and her eyes flickered down to look at the swirling patterns on the hotel carpet.

'An experiment, yeah?'

'An experiment,' she repeated quietly.

Fitz took a deep breath in and nodded, once curt and then another, more considered nod.

'Our room is 32,' he said after a moment, fumbling with his key in his fingertips. 'That ought to be on the...uh, second floor, d'you think?'

'Third, actually.'

She had memorised the floor plan of the hotel on the drive over.

'Third. Right.' He leant over and motioned towards her case. 'Give me that.'

Jemma frowned. 'Why?'

'Well, we might as well start as we mean to go on, right?' Fitz raised an eyebrow at her with a ghost of a smile. 'And what kind of caring boyfriend would let his girlfriend carry her case up to their room?'

He slid her fingers off the handle of her case and wrapped his own around it. It was the smallest gesture, the slightest touch, but it still made Jemma's heart flutter, like the frailest beat of a moth's wings.

Fitz started off towards the lifts, now dragging both their cases behind him, so that they bumped into one another and tipped on their wheels. Jemma watched him for a moment, feeling a brief flicker of doubt but then brushed it off, forcing her feet to follow him into the lift and decisively press the button to take them to their floor.

There was no going back now.

 


	2. oh god, i feel so unprepared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'This thing between you two...it's new, isn't it?'
> 
> Jemma glanced back over at Fitz, who had finally managed to pour her Sprite into a paper cup and was beaming at it with a smug satisfaction on his face.
> 
> 'Trust me...' she muttered under her breath. 'You have absolutely no idea.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so amazed at how positive the response has been for this, and it makes me so happy that people want to read more of it. I hope this chapter makes you just as happy, and the next update ought to be on Saturday!

They encountered their first problem as soon as Jemma pushed open the door to their room.

It was a perfectly pleasant room, painted a clean white, with modern black furniture and a small ensuite leading off of the main room. There was even a flat screen television on the sideboard with a bowl of fresh fruit in front of it.

The problem, however, was not with any of these things.

At first glance, it looked like the bed was a double (Jemma's heart did somersaults in her chest at the thought of physically sharing the same sheets as Fitz), but as she looked closer she saw that in fact the bed was made out of two singles pushed very close together with matching sheets tucked in a little too tightly.

'Very European,' she murmured and, as Fitz dumped their cases in the corner of the room, she made her way over to separate the beds to a slightly more conservative distance apart.

'Simmons, hold on.'

She froze. 'What's wrong?'

Fitz came to stand next to her, his hands on his hips, rocking back and forth pensively as they both considered the beds. 'Well, it's just...We signed into the room as a couple, yeah?'

'Ye-es...'

'Don't you think it would be weird if the cleaners come in and find the beds separated? I mean,' he hastened to add, 'it would be a bit weird that a couple who asked to share a room would want to have totally separate beds and not be, you know...as close to each other as they can get? Y'know how these Americans can get with personal space...'

'We're British,' Jemma pointed out.

'I know, but still.'

She stepped back from the bed reluctantly so they could observe the distance between the beds side by side. 'That's a point, I suppose.'

The beds did look very, very close together.

'It's only for a weekend,' Fitz said after they had stood there together, staring at the beds, for a few more minutes.

'Only for a weekend,' Jemma agreed.

 

 

After freshening up and setting their toothbrushes in the ensuite bathroom (hers was pink, his was green), they made their way back down to one of the hotel's conference rooms, where there was a meet-and-greet party for all the cadets. Before they went in, Jemma stopped them.

'You should hold my hand,' she said, decidedly.

'What? Why?'

'Because we're dating.'

'Oh. Yeah.'

Carefully, Fitz's hand came down to hover over her open palm. In the end though, it was her who made the swift, short movement upwards to take his hand in hers, lacing her fingers through his own. Fitz's palms were rough, unlike hers, and his skin was dry and surprisingly hot. Absently, Jemma wondered whether he would be offended if she got him some moisturiser for Christmas.

Inside the conference room, there was an excited humming of conversation as cadets from all the academies nervously approached one another to introduce themselves. There were maybe thirty of them in total, more coming from Communications than the other two. All were at least two years older than she and Fitz were.

Frozen in the doorway, Jemma felt her heart contract a little and she jumped as she felt Fitz's hold on her hand tighten ever so slightly, and he gave her palm an extra pump with his fingers. She glanced up at him and he nodded forwards, indicating that they should move further into the room. Fuelled with this extra pinch of confidence, Jemma took a deep breath and stepped forwards, pulling him after her.

'Hi!'

A bright-eyed girl from Communications bounced over to them, her face brimming with excitement. The I.D badge on her chest told them that her name was Laurel Jackson.

'I'm Laurel,' she said, motioning to her badge, 'as you can probably tell. I'm in charge of organisation this year. Do you guys have your badges yet?'

When they shook their heads, she delved into a large plastic tub on the long table in the middle of the room.

'You two are the last to come down,' she said cheerily, making two defiant tick marks on a clipboard. 'So you have to be Cadets Fitz and Simmons, yeah?'

She held out their badges. Jemma took hers; it had her identification photograph on it and her name and PHDs written on underneath. For some reason, seeing them printed there made her feel more secure, more grounded in reality. She pinned it firmly to her cardigan.

When she looked up, Fitz was still struggling with the pin, his face turning red as he fumbled.

'Here, let me.'

She reached up and plucked the badge from his hands before carefully attaching it to his shirt, making sure not to nip the skin underneath in the process. She thought about the skin of Fitz's chest underneath his shirt and fought down the urge to blush.

As she pulled back from him, Laurel was looking at them curiously. 'So...you two are like, _together_ , right?'

There was a half a heart beat pause before they answered.

'Yes!'

'Absolutely!'

'We are indeed...'

'...that.'

Jemma exhaled, slowly.

_Good start._

Laurel's smile became slightly more strained. 'Cute!' She handed them a sheet of paper. 'Okay, so here's your schedule. Tomorrow morning is a Communications demo, we're doing a language tutorial. Then in the afternoon it's you guys' time to shine. You're doing a demonstration of some new tech, right?'

They both nodded; Agent Weaver had helped them securely stash some of the new gadgets in the safe of the hotel earlier that afternoon.

'And then on Sunday morning,' Laurel continued. 'It's an Operations fest.' Jemma could have sworn Laurel went slightly cross-eyed as she said that. It was comforting to know that the rivalry with the Operations academy was universal.

'Looking forward to that. So!' Laurel clapped her hands together. 'That's the itinerary. If you have any questions, feel free to come to me and for now just have fun! Mingle, get a drink, something to eat. Get some time alone...' She gave them a little wink and wandered off, waving at cadets as she went.

'Well, that could have gone better,' Fitz muttered as soon as she was out of hearing range.

'It was fine!' Jemma insisted, as they looped their way through the other cadets. 'We just...need a little more practice, that's all. To get used to it.'

She bent down and took his hand in hers again, squeezing his fingers the same way he had hers, hoping to fill him with the same confidence he had given her. Already the gesture was fluid, easy. It was odd to think that ten minutes ago she had never done it before.

'I don't know if this is the kind of thing you can just get used to over one weekend,' Fitz mumbled.

'What's _that_ supposed to mean?'

Before he had the chance to reply, the couple they had seen earlier in the lobby approached them. Up close, Jemma could tell that they were both from Operations, and were probably in their final years of training.

'Hey!' The girl spoke first, giving an awkward half-wave. 'I'm Sally and this,' she gestured to the burly looking boy next to her, 'is Mick.'

'Hi,' Mick said, nodding towards the both of them and holding out his hand in an invitation to Fitz. He took it.

'Fitz,' he said bluntly. 'And this is Sim-'

Jemma hissed in a little through her teeth. People who were dating used first names, didn't they?

'I mean, Jemma,' Fitz amended, glancing down at her with a wince. Jemma shook her head at him slightly; _it's fine_.

Mick seemed to note the gesture and raised his eyebrows. 'You sure about that?'

'Of course I'm sure,' Fitz retorted. 'She's _my_ girlfriend, isn't she?'

Mick and Sally pulled back a little bit; Sally's eyes widening a little. This time it was Jemma's turn to wince. He had possibly been a little too sharp with that.

'We're a couple,' she added, unhelpfully. 'We're dating.'

'It's okay,' Sally said, with an uncertain smile. 'It's hard maintaining a relationship within such a professional atmosphere.' She put her arm around Mick's waist. 'We appreciate that.'

'Is it?' Fitz asked, slightly dismally. Jemma gave him a delicate kick on the ankle. 'Oh! Yes. Hmm. Very hard.'

'Hey.' Mick gave Sally a gentle poke in the ribs. 'Do you want a coke?'

'Ooh, yes please.'

She let her arm drop from his waist and he peeled away from her, then appeared to wait patiently next to Fitz, who stared at him blankly for a while before the penny dropped.

'Oh! Right.' He turned to Jemma. 'Do you, um, want a drink?'

'I'd love a Sprite. Please.'

He nodded and let go of her hand (Jemma had all but forgotten they had still been holding onto one another while professing their 'relationship'; good grief, they must have looked absolutely _nuts_ ), before turning to plod along after Mick towards the drinks table.

Sally stepped over so she was standing next to Jemma and gave her the encouraging grin of an older sister. Jemma smiled back shyly.

'So...he's cute,' Sally said, nodding towards Fitz.

'Is he?' Jemma said without thinking. 'I mean!' she amended hastily when Sally shot her a curious look. 'Yes, um, I suppose...'

Fitz was standing next to Mick at the drinks table, the bigger boy kept knocking Fitz's elbow as they poured their drinks so that it spilt over his hand. Next to him, Jemma noticed how slight Fitz was, but also how well structured his body shape was. His curls were slightly ruffled and he had rolled his shirt sleeves up over his elbows. His shirt was also untucked at the back, so that the tails hung down over his...

_Ahem_.

Jemma shifted her gaze back up to Sally. 'He is, um, very cute.'

Sally smiled, knowingly. 'This thing between you two...it's new, isn't it?'

Jemma glanced back over at Fitz, who had finally managed to pour her Sprite into a paper cup and was beaming at it with a smug satisfaction on his face.

'Trust me...' she muttered under her breath. 'You have absolutely no idea.'

 

 

'Simmons, what are you doing?'

'Research.'

'On what?'

'Relationships.'

Fitz squinted at her from the door of the ensuite. 'Is that really the kind of thing _you_ would need to research?'

She scowled at him. 'I really don't think snogging Adam Wheeler in the boiler room counts as a 'relationship'.'

'If I recall, it wasn't just Adam Wheeler you were snogging.'

'Fitz!' Jemma whined.

'Alright! Alright, just give me a minute.'

He turned back into the bathroom and tugged the door shut behind him. It bounced back open slightly and Jemma glanced up, peering over the top of her laptop screen. She could see his back reflected in the mirror over the loo and her eyes widened as he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off. Her mouth ran dry as Fitz bent down to pick up a t-shirt from the floor, the bones of his spine protruding slightly from his skin.

She hadn't ever imagined he could be so... well, _toned_.

Jemma flicked her eyes back to her laptop just as Fitz turned around to head out of the bathroom. She creased up her eyebrows, trying hard to look intently focused on her screen, as he tossed his clothes back into his suitcase and climbed onto his bed next to hers.

'Show me what you've got, then.'

Jemma pushed herself up onto her elbows, tucking her hair behind her ears. 'This afternoon was not entirely successful for our experiment,' she admitted.

Fitz snorted. 'You can say that again.'

After their not-exactly-unawkward conversation with Mick and Sally, Fitz had managed to spill her Sprite over himself in shock when she had used his first name in an introduction (it had since been decided that would _never_ happen again), Jemma had choked on a chilli canapé he had given to her by mistake and they had both blurted out the other's birthdays when asked for their own.

As first impressions went, Jemma doubted they could have come off worse.

'But, it all comes down to preparation. We were woefully under-prepared tonight but now we can make sure it doesn't happen again.' She tilted her screen so he could see what she had been working on.

Fitz squinted. 'Simmons...Have you invented a backstory for our fake relationship?'

Jemma nodded enthusiastically. She'd been working on it for the whole time he had been showering and was incredibly proud of the extensive research it had taken.

'Apparently one of the the most common places in popular culture for teenagers to meet a future spouse is in a coffee shop, so I've put that as where we met. Also, the most successful first dates seem to take place in posh restaurants, generally with champagne and in candlelight, so I've written a little about that, oh, and I've also included a little description of what I was wearing because clothes seems to feature _prominently_ in young adult fiction novels. Why are you laughing?'

Fitz had fallen back on his bed, his shoulders shaking and his hands covering his face. Jemma felt her face colour and she sat back on her heels indignantly.

'What? What is it?'

He shook his head, still utterly helpless with laughter. Grabbing her pillow from the head of her bed, Jemma hit him in the shoulder with it crossly.

'Ouch!' Fitz sat up, batting her away. 'Alright, alright, I'm sorry, but _bloody hell_ , Simmons...'

'What's wrong with it?' Jemma demanded, kneeling up so she was taller than him and glaring.

'Nothing! Absolutely nothing...if you were writing a backstory for any old fictional couple. We just need to make it slightly more sample specific.'

He leant across her and plucked her laptop out of her grasp. Jemma tried to ignore the flutter she felt deep in her gut as his bare arm brushed against her chest and she caught the tang of his shower gel in her nose.

'It wouldn't make much sense for us to have met in a coffee shop,' Fitz explained, as he hit the backspace key rapidly. 'Think about it, Simmons, where would the most logical place for us to have met been?'

Jemma fell quiet, nibbling at a loose hangnail. 'At the Academy,' she said. 'But we _did_ meet there.'

'Exactly. It's the truth, so far less chance of you- I mean,' Fitz hastily corrected as she narrowed her eyes at him. 'Of _either of us_ mucking it up.'

Jemma sighed. Irritatingly, he was making sense.

'Fine. I suppose first dates in candlelight are also out?'

'And underage drinks in the Boiler Room with an overly competitive game of pool are in.'

_But that_ was _what we did that first night we were friends_.

Fitz glanced up at her. 'It can't just be romantic,' he said, quietly. 'It has to be _us_.'

Jemma bit her lip and nodded.

For the next hour, they went over the backstory she had created, Fitz amending parts so it tailored to them and adding bits in as embellishment. More and more, the story of their fake relationship was sounding like their real life friendship.

Jemma decided not to say anything.

By the time they were both able to chant their story off by heart and backwards, it was approaching one in the morning and when Jemma yawned for the third time in a minute, Fitz closed the laptop pointedly.

'Bedtime.'

'Bedtime,' she agreed.

They both untucked their sheets and slide between them; the slightest hum of awkwardness hanging in the air.

Fitz sighed deeply and turned onto his side away from her.

Jemma hugged her sheets under her chin and tried to ignore the delighted shiver that ran down her back as she remembered the sight of his spine in the bathroom mirror.

_Good grief_.

He turned off the bedside lamp.

'Night, Simmons.'

'Night, Fitz.'

 

It was the sunlight that woke her in the morning (why were hotel curtains always so woefully inept?).

Jemma screwed her eyes tighter shut in protest at the brightness and squirmed her toes, stretching her legs out under the covers. She was warm, and sleepy but there was something bothering her. Her pillow felt a lot harder than it had when she had fallen asleep.

She frowned.

There was someone blowing in her hair as well, and something soft and warm and restricting around her middle.

Carefully, Jemma opened one of her eyes, and then the other.

Somehow, during the night, both she and Fitz had managed to gravitate towards the very edges of their respective beds, so that she was lying with her head leaning on his right arm, which was flung out across her pillow, and his other arm was resting over her stomach. Glancing upwards, Jemma's breathing gave a little hitch as she saw Fitz's head just centimetres above her own, his eyelashes curling gently on his cheeks and his mouth parted slightly.

_Ah_.

Jemma lay exactly as she was, curved on her side and breathing lightly through her nose, and tried to slow her heartbeat down but it was hard to do. It was hard, because Fitz smelt sweet and salty at the same time, because she could feel his pulse beating on her temple, because she liked the way his arm felt on her middle. It was hard to because everytime he breathed out, her heart skipped a beat and her stomach turned.

Jemma shut her eyes again and waited.

It took maybe another ten minutes for Fitz to wake up. She _felt_ him wake first, felt his limbs seize up as he realised what had happened, then she heard him suck in a breath. For a moment, Jemma lay perfectly still, her heart in her throat.

Then, his arm over her stomach cautiously retracted, leaving an cold space on her waist. Jemma heard Fitz grunt slightly as he shifted onto his side and gently eased her shoulder up so he could slip his other arm out from underneath her before setting her back down again.

She felt his bed dip, and guessed he must have swung his legs around to the side. There was a pause, and then she heard him give a deep sigh and get up. She heard the bathroom door close and, before long, the sound of running water.

Curled on her side, Jemma lay still, her mind ticking over like a watch. Her body was reacting in an alarming way it had never done before; it was like the way her heart had been skipping when Fitz looked at her recently, but deeper, more intense, and as it ebbed away it left a hollow feeling in her gut.

Jemma gritted her teeth, and flung back the sheets.

She was just opening her case to pick out her outfit for the day, when Fitz opened the bathroom door again. He started when he saw her, almost as if he had forgotten she was there at all.

'Good morning,' Jemma said, forcing her voice to be bright.

'Morning.' Fitz rubbed at the back of his neck. 'Did I, um, wake you up?'

'Oh. No, you didn't.' (Well, that was true.) 'I just got up.' (Also the truth.)

'Ah.' Fitz nodded, and his shoulders relaxed. 'Good.' He gestured vaguely behind him. 'Um, bathroom's free if you want it.'

Grateful for the distraction, Jemma scooped up her clothes and grabbed her washbag.

'Did you sleep well?' she asked, brushing past him into the bathroom.

Fitz stopped, his hand still frozen on the door. Jemma watched as his eyebrows creased inwards in confusion and something that looked like doubt flickered across his face.

'Yeah,' he said, and even as he said it he looked surprised. 'Yeah. I really did.'

The feeling was back again, looping itself over Jemma's insides and squeezing so hard it was making it hard to breathe.

'Good,' she said, slightly breathlessly. 'So did I.'

And then she barrelled past him and into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. She let her body slide down the wood of the door until her bum hit the cool, smooth tiles on the ground. Jemma huffed her breath out, so that the loose strands of hair on her forehead blew off her face and sighed.

_So._

_This was going well._

 


	3. isn't this dangerous?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly, Fitz coughed pointedly, like he had an important announcement to make.
> 
> 'Jemma, I'm going to kiss you now.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half-way through this now and things are definitely picking up! Anyone who spots the Taylor Swift reference in here gets 50 points, by the way ;)
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last one!

'Bonjour, les cadets! Se il vous plaît, prenez un siège en face de votre partenaire.'

It was Laurel's cheerful French that greeted them at the conference room door, as they went in with a group of chattering cadets after breakfast.

They were holding hands again; Fitz had taken Jemma's in his own as soon as they had left the dining hall, without her having to prompt him this time. Something seemed to have changed in him since the day before, since that morning even. He seemed to be more confident in what they were doing, securer somehow.

Jemma wondered if it had been the backstory.

She _hoped_ it had been the backstory.

'What did she ask us to do?' Fitz muttered under his breath as Laurel ushered them into the room.

'She wants us to sit down opposite a partner,' Jemma murmured in reply, silently grateful for the meagre French lessons she had received in high school.

The room was set up with pairs of tables and chairs so that the chairs were facing one another. On each desk, there was what looked like a miniature laptop, a pad of paper, a French dictionary and a pen.

She steered Fitz towards an empty pair of tables and sat down opposite him.

'Okay!' Laurel had made her way up to the front of the room and clapped her hands for attention. 'So, today we are going to be giving you a beginners class in French. It's one of the most useful languages for a S.H.I.E.L.D agent to learn and over at Comms, it's a compulsory class.'

She leant over to the table nearest to her and picked up one of the laptops. 'These devices are the latest new toys from the Tech division, and they can translate anything into almost every single language currently used across the globe. A group of us Communications cadets helped out in their development a few months ago.' Laurel glanced up to wink in Fitz and Jemma's direction. 'Contrary to what you might have been told, cadets from separate divisions _can_ work well together.'

Jemma smiled, as another Communications cadet stepped up to Laurel's place to explain how the translator devise worked.

'Choose a message to send to your partner,' the cadet said. 'Make it pretty long. Type it into the keyboard and it will translate and then transmit it to your partners device. Their job is to translate it manually as quickly as they can and the pair to translate their partners messages fastest wins.'

Predictably, a hand went up in the far corner.

'What do we win?'

'A S.H.I.E.L.D standard sense of achievement,' Laurel said, with the firmness of a primary school teacher. She beamed around the room. 'Good luck, everyone!'

Across the room, there was the shuffling of papers and the clicking of keyboards as cadets began furiously typing out their messages.

Jemma stared at her blank translator screen, nibbling anxiously on her thumb nail. A message. She needed to write out a message for Fitz, but it couldn't just be anything, of course. It had to be something romantic, something a girlfriend would write to her boyfriend.

_Boyfriend._

She glanced up at Fitz, who was very carefully and deliberately hitting at his keys, the tip of his tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Obviously he had found something to write to her. Which meant she needed to find something too, and fast.

Jemma pushed her hands back behind her neck and shut her eyes. Romance. What did she know about romance?

_A thing of beauty is a joy forever; its loveliness increases._

Poetry.

Poetry was romantic, and she had spent the majority of her high school English lessons muttering the lines under her breath until she could recite them as easily as she could the noble gases. She could easily send Fitz some lines of poetry over the device.

_It can't just be romantic. It has to be_ us _._

Jemma sighed, and, mentally drawing a line through the idea of poetry, slumped back in her chair. She needed something romantic, yes, but it also had to be something that connected her and Fitz. Something they shared.

Something like science.

A seed of an idea bloomed in her mind and, slowly at first but then picking up speed, Jemma began to type.

'That's time!' Laurel called, just as she was finishing typing up her final sentence. 'Send over your messages and get translating!'

On the device screen, Jemma's message vanished, being replaced by lines and lines of French text. Fitz's message to her.

Across the table, he caught her eye and gave her a fleeting smile. Jemma returned it, feeling a tug at the coils of her intestines as she did so, and picked up her dictionary with a deep breath.

The first two words did not need translating, so that was easy enough, if a little peculiar. Jemma frowned at them as she wrote them down onto her paper.

She thumbed her way through the dictionary, and as she translated more and more of the words of Fitz's message, her heart started to beat faster in her chest and the blood began to pound in her ears.

By the time Laurel had made her way around to their desk, Jemma had discarded the dictionary altogether and was scribbling the translations down as fast as her hand would let her.

'Woah!' Laurel sounded impressed. 'You must have known French before.'

'Um, a little.' Jemma's face felt flushed.

Laurel leant over her shoulder. 'What did Fitz send you?'

Jemma reread the words she had just written, mouthing them as she did so.

 

_“Fitz.”_

_“Simmons.”_

_“I know. I mean, I know that that's your name. Not because I've been stalking you or anything, just because I knew about you.”_

_“Oh. Well, in that case, I knew about you too.”_

 

And so it goes.

'It's the first time we worked together,' Jemma said quietly. 'When we were paired together for the first time.' She took a deep breath, and exhaled shakily. 'They're the first words he ever said to me.'

'Wow.' Laurel's voice was tinged with something that sounded suspiciously like awe. 'And he remembers it all?'

'Every single word.'

As, apparently, did she.

'What did you send him?'

Jemma didn't answer straight away; Fitz was finishing up his translation of her message and, through the gap across their table, she could see a smile spreading across his face. He put his pencil down and looked up at her over the table and there was something soft and warm shining in his eyes.

Suddenly, Jemma felt incredibly hot under his eyes and had to look away, taken aback by the level of shyness she was feeling.

'Thermodynamics,' she murmured, half under her breath. She looked up at Laurel. 'I sent him the first law of thermodynamics.'

 

 

The water from the machine was gloriously cold and Jemma closed her eyes as she drank it, relishing the coolness on the back of her throat. She felt hot all over, and yet there were still goosebumps running down her spine and through her limbs and they were making her shiver.

It was really most disconcerting.

Jemma moved her fingers over the plastic of the cup to cool them down and leant her head on the wall, wondering whether running the cup along her forehead would be able to cool her brain down as well.

Somehow, she doubted it would.

God, what was _wrong_ with her? She had been attracted to people before. She was incredibly _good_ at being attracted to people, actually; she had carried out extensive research into what made people attractive and so knew exactly what to look for. Facial symmetry, nice skin, excellent career prospects...

She was also very good at acting on her attraction, especially since she had been at the Academy and discovered that she could be attractive to other people as well. Fitz hadn't been entirely wrong when he had called her out on Adam Wheeler in the boiler room. Her time at the Academy had so far featured snogging with lots of different boys, all of varying attraction levels (and all with wonderful career prospects).

But none of that had ever felt like _this_.

Jemma sighed, and picked up the cup of water for Fitz before making her way back to the hotel lounge. The cadets had pretty much taken over the hotel by this point, although Jemma had a sneaky suspicion that they were the only guests there. One of the perks of joining a secret agency, she supposed.

In the lounge, there were cadets everywhere; Operations kids crowded around the pool table, while some of her peers from Sci-Tech took them on, smug grins on their faces. There was also a large group gathered around the television, yelling at whatever car chase video game the Communications kids had hacked their way into.

In the centre of the lounge were a collection of sofas and chairs, on which more cadets were lazily stretched out on, chattering amiably. Jemma made her way over to the sofa Fitz was sitting on, pressing himself up at the far end with one leg resting on his knee. From behind, Jemma could see the back of his shirt was ruched at the neck; she remembered what he looked like without a shirt on and felt her cheeks flame up again.

'Here,' she announced, her voice maybe a little too shrill. She held out the cup of water as she stood by his elbow.

Fitz jumped; he had been staring at something in front of him and seemed to not have heard her approach.

'Oh.' He took the cup. 'Thanks.'

'No problem.'

Jemma hovered at his side awkwardly. She realised she should probably sit next to him, but as she walked around to the sofa, Fitz reached up to stop her before she could sit down.

'Wait.'

Jemma paused, feeling his fingers wrap around her wrist. 'What's wrong?'

Fitz wasn't looking directly at her, but at something behind her. He licked his bottom lip and sighed, like he had just made some definitive decision.

'Sit on my lap.'

Jemma blinked. 'Come again?'

No, she couldn't have heard that right.

Fitz sighed again, but this time, he looked up at her and Jemma felt her heart turn over in her chest. 'Sit on my lap.'

_Oh_. Apparently she had.

'Why?'

'Because we're a couple, Jemma.'

_Oh_.

He gave a gentle tug at her wrist and began to pull her down ontop of him. Wordlessly, Jemma let him, until she was sitting on his lap with one arm draped around his neck and her legs tangled up with his. She tried to shift herself so she wasn't putting her full weight on him, her blood pulsing in her fingertips.

'Is, um, is this okay?' she asked in a whisper.

'What?' Fitz's face was so close to hers; it was almost as close as it had been that morning when she had woken up, except this time she was looking down at him instead of up. 'Yeah, no. You're fine. It's fine.'

He gave her a slight, reassuring squeeze with the hand that he had brought down to hold her at the waist, while the other rested loosely over her legs. Jemma kept her free hand neatly tucked between her thighs.

'So...what prompted this?' she asked quietly.

Fitz shrugged. 'I've been doing my own research,' he said vaguely.

'What sort of research?'

'Observations,' he said, and Jemma glanced over to where he had been looking when she had come in.

On a sofa opposite them, she recognised Mick and Sally from the previous night. Sally was curled up in Mick's lap, both her arms looped around his neck, and their foreheads were touching while they talked quietly. They looked at each other like they were the only people in the world.

Jemma felt an unpleasant pang in her chest.

Suddenly, Fitz coughed pointedly, like he had an important announcement to make.

'Jemma, I'm going to kiss you now.'

Jemma's head snapped back to him, and she opened her mouth to say _I beg your pardon._

But Fitz's lips met hers before she could get the words out and then he was kissing her.

It wasn't a very clean kiss. Their teeth clashed, and Jemma had sucked in a breath which caused her to choke ever so slightly, but it didn't really matter.

In that one moment, the only thing that Jemma could process was Fitz.

Her body was responding to his touch in ways she had never imagined. The fluttering feelings she had felt before were nothing compared to this, compared to the electricity surging through her skin and firing off in her belly, making her forget where she was, what she was doing, even her own name.

The only thing in the world that mattered was Fitz.

When he pulled back with a start, Jemma couldn't suppress a tiny gasp of dismay.

'Oh God.' Fitz pressed his fingers to his lips, like he was taking in the impression of the kiss. He looked dazed, and vaguely horrified. 'Sorry, I should've...'

'No-'

'...Given you a bit more warning, that was stupid of me...'

'It wasn't-'

'...I'm so sor-'

This time, she kissed him.

Fitz jumped a little as she pressed her lips firmly back down onto his, but he didn't protest and Jemma felt his hand on her legs tighten a little. She cupped the back of his neck with her hand, pulling herself closer into his chest to kiss him again, feeling a smug flicker of satisfaction as she felt him sigh into her.

Yes, she had kissed people before. But it had never felt like _this_.

The sound of the dinner gong in her ears made Jemma pull back with a start. The world around her gradually pieced itself back together as she got her breath back; the cadets around them were starting to disperse into the dining room; some of them were staring.

'We should probably...um...' Fitz gestured vaguely.

'Oh. Yes.'

She practically fell off of his lap in her haste to straighten her skirt out. Fitz stood up after her, still rubbing ruefully at his lips. Jemma wondered anxiously whether her lip balm had tasted bad.

A deeper part of her wondered whether her _kissing_ had been bad; her previous test subjects had been rather too intoxicated to offer constructive criticism on her technique afterwards. Maybe that had been why Fitz had been sorry for kissing her.

But he held out his hand for hers anyway and Jemma took it. It was a reflex action now, as easy and natural as breathing.

As they followed the others into the dining room, something clicked in Jemma's mind, like a light switch being flicked on.

With the other boys she had kissed, she had been satisfied. One kiss or two, and she had been done, ready to move on and get going again. They had been like her early morning cup of tea, a kick of caffeine – they had satisfied a craving that wouldn't go away otherwise.

With Fitz though, it wasn't like that. She wasn't satisfied; there was still a pang deep in her gut; a hunger, Jemma realised with a shock.

With Fitz, she wanted _more_.

 

 

She managed to wait until she had shut their hotel room door behind them until she turned to him.

'I think we should do it again.'

Fitz had been taking off his shoes, he almost ended up toppling over.

'Do what again?' he stammered, staring at her wide-eyed.

'Kiss.' Jemma could feel the blood flooding to her cheeks, but she tilted her chin up anyway. 'We should kiss again.'

Tentatively, Fitz put his foot back on the ground. 'Um. Should we?'

Jemma nodded and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. 'Absolutely.'

Fitz straightened up and rubbed his palms together anxiously. 'Why?'

'Because that was our first time. Kissing each other, I mean. And it probably looked like it was. Which it shouldn't, because as far as the others are concerned, we are dating and therefore should be spending a lot of our time kissing each other. Hence, we need more practice.'

The heat in her chest was rising, but she was determined not to back out now. She wanted this. In fact, it was almost dangerous how much she wanted this.

Jemma curled her fingers into a ball.

Fitz appeared to be considering what she had said, a slight frown on his face, then nodded. 'Okay. If you think...'

'I do.'

'Right.'

He exhaled slowly and deeply. Jemma felt her chest tighten as he did so; God, was that really something she found attractive? She didn't care though.

She really did not care.

'We're going to do it properly this time though,' Fitz declared, kicking his shoes over to his suitcase and practically tripping over his feet as he hastened to their beds.

Jemma followed him, fighting down the urge to fan her face as he stripped off his cardigan (bloody _hell_ , what had _happened_ to her?).

'What do you mean properly? What wasn't proper about last time?'

'Well, I didn't get your permission, for one thing.'

'Fitz, I don't think kissing is the kind of thing you have to get permission for.'

'Well, it should be.' He sounded deadly serious about that.

Jemma perched down on the edge of her bed, suddenly incredibly nervous.

There were several inches between them; they had been closer together than this during their friendship, often they had found themselves pressed so close together she could make herself breath in sync with him.

To Jemma, those few inches felt like miles.

Fitz straightened his back and cleared his throat. 'Can I kiss you?'

Jemma nodded, the simple three letter word failing her. Yet, when Fitz hesitated leaning in, it was her who bridged the gap between them to put her lips to his.

It felt like electricity again, starting on the tip of her tongue and then filling her bones, setting the thin hairs on her arms on edge. Jemma's body shifted, so that she was facing him head on, her knees sliding up the foot of the bed to rest in his lap.

'Is...' Fitz half gasped out between breaths. 'Is this alright?'

'Hmm?' There was a faint buzzing in Jemma's ears; distantly, she made a note to look up whether this was normal with romantic attraction later on. 'Yes, yes. Of course it is.'

'Okay, good.'

He seemed relieved and as she brought her hand up to tug at the collar of his shirt as she kissed him again, his hands found their way to her waist, pulling them closer together. They felt good pressed against the silky material of her shirt.

'Because you'll have to tell me...' Fitz interrupted again, pulling back abruptly so that their noses scraped against one another. 'If I'm doing it wrong...because...um....'

Jemma stopped, her lips part way over his. 'Because...you've never done this before?'

'Well. No, actually.'

She pulled back, slightly astonished but also wondering why she was so surprised. 'Fitz, was I your first kiss?'

'Well. Yes.'

He was embarrassed, Jemma realised with a pang in her heart. He was embarrassed that he wasn't any good, that he didn't have as much experience as she did, that she would think he was useless at this. She shook her head. _Oh, Fitz..._

Impulsively, Jemma bent forward to kiss him again but softer this time, her lips barely brushing his, a butterfly's kiss. 'You're doing great,' she whispered.

Fitz nodded, his forehead dipping forward to lean against hers. The gesture felt strangely intimate to Jemma, like something that should happen between her parents, not her and her best friend. In between them, their hands had twined together like vines.

_'_ Thanks, Jem,' Fitz said, quietly. Then he grinned. 'You're the most supportive pretend girlfriend I've ever had.'

Jemma snorted, pulling her forehead away from his and crossing her legs. 'Exactly how many pretend girlfriends have you had?'

'Well. Just you. But even if I'd had more, you'd still be the best.'

She cocked her head. 'You said I was the most supportive.'

'Did I?' He had the decency to look sheepish. 'I guess that makes you the best anyway.'

Jemma smiled. 'Thanks.'

'No problem.'

He was leaning back on his hands now, which were splayed out on the bed behind him. She was sitting with her crossed knees overlapping onto his thigh, but there was none of the awkwardness that there had been the previous night, or even that afternoon. Was it really that easy, to slip from friendship into something far more intimate, something so much more?

But of course, nothing was ever easy.

'That enough practising then, d'you think?' Fitz asked, nudging her knees with his leg.

Jemma bit her lip. No, actually. It wasn't enough, not for her, but now she was beginning to wonder whether there ever would be.

'Yeah. That's enough.'

 

 

They got ready for bed in silence, but it wasn't a heavy silence, or one that felt out of place. It fell comfortably, familiarly. It fell right.

Fitz let her use the bathroom first. Jemma scrubbed repeatedly at her face with her flannel, the cold water on her hot skin making her gasp. Even afterwards though, her lips still tingled and she hesitantly put her fingers up to trace them slowly. She took a shaky breath in when she remembered Fitz doing the very same thing back down in the hotel lounge.

They swapped; when he finally came out of the bathroom and carefully shut the door behind him, she was already in bed. Jemma lay on her side facing his bed, as Fitz padded across the room and peeled back his sheets.

He turned onto his side automatically, so that they were nose to nose.

'Hi.'

'Hi.'

His eyes were incredibly blue, Jemma mused, her eyes flitting over Fitz's face lying just one pillow length from her. Had they always been that blue? Or had she just never looked before?

He smiled at her over the sheets, and Jemma felt something clench at her heart as she smiled back. His cheek dimpled when he smiled, she noted. Not both of them. Just the left one.

She'd never noticed that either.

Fitz sighed, and turned onto his back to reach out and turn out the light.

'Night, Jemma.'

'Night, Fitz.'

 


	4. got what i want but now i'm scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a pang, she realised that while she might not be ready to let go of their pretend relationship, clearly Fitz could not wait for things to get back to normal.
> 
> Which, Jemma thought, hurt quite a bit. Or, if she came to think about it, actually hurt quite a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made the decision to split this last chapter into two, because otherwise it would have been incredibly long. Unfortunately, that means that this chapter is a little bit shorter than normal, sorry! But the next chapter will be up on Wednesday, and it's quite a lot longer again.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this, and thank you so much for your lovely comments so far :)

Jemma woke up the next morning to an extra heartbeat pulsing on her chest.

She lay quietly, allowing her body to assess the situation. She had turned towards Fitz in her sleep and he had turned to her too so that their bodies curved in towards one another like the ying and the yang.

She had rolled onto his arm again, that he seemed to have flung out towards her on the pillow and she had her head tucked into the crook of his neck and shoulder. Ever so lightly, his lips were pressed into her hair.

Jemma exhaled and, tentatively, reached out to brush her fingers along the thin layer of hairs that ran along the sides of his arm – an arm that was curved around her waist and holding her to him. The hairs prickled as she did so and she quickly retracted her hand, resting it back down on the sheet.

She allowed herself to keep her eyes open and inhale through her nose, breathing in the smell of his toothpaste and his skin, looking over the curve of his nose and the cusp of his lips. She didn't feel any of the anxiety, or embarrassment, that she had the morning before. Instead, Jemma thought, it just felt...good. She felt warm, and comfortable and safe. And she didn't ever want him to wake up.

But eventually, Fitz began to stir. Jemma shut her eyes again and kept her breathing even, hoping he wouldn't see she was awake. She felt him tense up at first like he had done before, but he didn't pull away from her quite as fast. The thumb that was resting on her hip rubbed back and forwards softly.

Jemma thought her heart was going to burst out of her chest.

Fitz sighed, and his arm left her waist. His lips pushed down slightly on the top of her head before he slid his arm out from under her and got up for the bathroom. Once he was gone, Jemma's hand went automatically to where he had kissed her, her fingers trembling.

It might not mean anything. ( _Or it might_ ). Other best friends kissed each other on the forehead, didn't they? ( _Well, they might. She didn't really know. She'd only ever had him_ ).

She found herself wishing it hadn't only been her hair he had kissed.

With a deep sigh, Jemma swung her legs around the side of the bed to get dressed for the day. It was Sunday; the conference ended tomorrow morning. At the thought of that, Jemma's heart sank and she had to swallow the lump at the back of her throat hard. They only had one more day and one more night of pretending to be a couple.

She intended to make the most of it, however bittersweet it might feel.

 

 

After breakfast, the cadets were herded into a large black coach that had pulled up outside the hotel doors. Like the minibus that Agent Weaver had driven, the coach had black out windows so that they could see out but nobody could see in. Jemma was beginning to wonder whether all S.H.I.E.L.D vehicles had such windows, and whether it was some sort of protocol. She made a mental note to search for it in the cadet handbook.

Fitz let her board the coach in front of him, and once on, Jemma slid across a set of seats and into the window seat. Wordlessly, Fitz sat down next to her and reached out to twine their fingers together without hesitation. Jemma let him, resting her head back against the back of the seat contentedly.

She would miss this part a lot, she mused, enjoying the feel of his pulse beating against her wrist. She would miss being able to hold his hand. Could “just best friends” still hold each other's hands? When she felt his fingers give hers an affectionate squeeze, Jemma decided that they might have to.

'You okay?' Fitz murmured, leaning his head closer to hers. His eyebrows were creased and he looked genuinely concerned. It made her heart ache.

'Mhm.' Jemma nodded and gave him a brief smile. 'I'm fine. Just a little bit nervous about what Operations have planned for us.'

'Probably just some crawling through mud puddles under barbed wires,' Fitz muttered bitterly. 'Or running from poisonous snakes for six miles barefoot, or God knows what other torture forms they use disguised as classes at that place...'

'Shh...'

'Did you bring your anti-venom pack? We might be needing it.'

'Oh, Fitz!'

His head rolled away from hers as she fought down her giggles; they had both attracted a few haughty glances from the Operations cadets. Jemma shook her head in exasperation at him as he grinned to himself.

'Whatever it is,' Fitz continued, suddenly his expression serious. 'We'll do it together, yeah?'

'Together,' Jemma agreed, feeling a flood of warmth inside her chest.

Fitz nodded, and the coach gave a lurch forward and they were on their way.

'Only one more day to go,' he whispered, half under his breath, and Jemma wasn't sure whether she had been meant to hear it or not.

With a pang, she realised that while she might not be ready to let go of their pretend relationship, clearly Fitz could not wait for things to get back to normal.

Which, Jemma thought, hurt quite a bit.

Or, if she came to think about it, actually hurt quite a lot.

 

 

It was several hours before the coach came to a stop, on the edge of a clearing in the middle of a forest.

Jemma had fallen asleep on Fitz's shoulder (really, she thought blearily, it was like they were magnetised together) and she sat up, blinking groggily out of the window.

'Where the hell are we?' she asked, rubbing the ball of her fist into her eyes.

'Outer Mongolia,' Fitz declared glumly, reaching over to pull her hand away. 'Or it might as well be. Should've rung our parents before we left. Doubt they'll ever find our bodies out here.'

Jemma rolled her eyes and nudged his knee with her leg. Obediently, he swung out of his seat and blocked the aisle so she could hop out after him and, impulsively, Jemma reached behind her to grope for his hand to pull him after her.

She found it so easily that she almost wondered if he had been reaching for her at the same time.

_Magnetic_ , she thought to herself with a smile.

 

 

'Listen up!'

The spokesman for the Operations cadet must have been at least six foot four, Jemma decided, if not taller. She might have been a lot more intimidated by him if her focus hadn't been slightly distracted by the assault course she could see behind him.

'The course is a mile long,' the cadet explained, patrolling down the ranks of teenagers assembled before him like a military commander. 'There will be obstacles that require a range of skills.' He counted them off on his fingers. 'Speed, agility, strength and...'

'Please say mechanical engineering,' Fitz muttered under his breath beside her.

'...stamina.'

'Damn.'

Jemma ducked her head to hide a smile and studied the ground while the cadet continued talking. It had rained the night before, so Fitz's gloomy predictions about mud puddles might not have been too far off.

She nudged the damp earth with the tip of her trainer and wished she was wearing something more water proof than a t-shirt and leggings. If only the Operations kids had given her a little more time to be prepared.

'The course _will_ be a race.' A more familiar voice had taken over; Jemma glanced up to see Sally had stepped to the front of the group. With her hands clasped behind her back and her body pulled taunt, she could imagine why Mick was so captivated by her.

'And before anyone asks,' Sally continued, with a raised eyebrow. 'Yes, there _will_ be a prize for the winner.' A couple of hands in the audience fell back to their sides.

'What is it?' A lone voice called.

'You don't have to walk back to the coach afterwards,' the first cadet said bluntly. There was a smattering of giggles; Jemma wasn't entirely convinced that it wasn't a joke.

'This is also an individual test,' Sally added, giving her colleague a sharp glance. 'Although S.H.I.E.L.D is a collective organisation, there are times when agents may have to work alone, especially if you are a specialist. Sometimes you have to make the decision between saving yourself and saving someone else.'

Jemma swallowed nervously.

'You have fifteen minutes.' The first cadet gave a mischievous grin. 'Good luck!'

He sounded a pistol in the air. Jemma jumped at the unexpected sound (blimey, what kind of agent was she going to be if she reacted like that to every shot she heard?) and was shoved forwards by the sudden surge of cadets eager to make the starting line.

A flare of panic rose in her chest and Jemma stumbled, suddenly certain that she was about to topple head first into the mud. But then Fitz's hand found her elbow and he steadied her, firmly reaching out to tuck her into his side, away from the other cadets.

'Still together?' he asked.

Jemma exhaled in relief. 'Still together,' she agreed and took his hand to join the crush of cadets running for the start of the course.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

 

 

'Jemma, it's fine.'

He was lying, of course.

Perched ontop of a two and a half meters tall climbing net, her hands clutching tightly at the wood underneath her in an attempt to keep herself stable, Jemma knew perfectly well that this was not fine at all.

'Humans are not supposed to be this far off the ground,' she said, her voice rising only an octave higher than usual. 'It's entirely unnatural.'

If she had felt she could let her gaze drop below to her eyeline without throwing up, she might have been able to see Fitz roll his eyes at her.

'Right, well, in order to get down to a more _natural_ level off the ground,' he reasoned in a voice that sounded suspiciously like her own, 'you need to bring your other leg over to this side.'

Logically, Jemma's brain was aware that he was completely right in this. The illogical part of her, the part that was making her palms sweat and her ears ring, however, was less convinced and her fingers only dug tighter into the wood.

'Maybe you should just go on,' Jemma suggested, her eyes fixed stubbornly on the line of trees directly in front of her. 'Come back later, when you've finished the course.'

Fitz snorted, but Jemma pressed on. 'The others are probably practically finished by now and you don't-'

'Jemma,' Fitz interrupted. 'I'm not leaving you. And you are not staying up there.'

Frustrated with herself more than anything else, Jemma squeezed her eyes shut.

'And don't you dare shut your eyes either!'

She snapped them back open and gave a little groan.

'Shut your eyes and you lose your balance, lose your balance and you fall. It's basic physics, Jemma.'

Jemma groaned louder. 'So where _am_ I supposed to look then?'

'The ground would be a good start, if you want to get down.'

Her stomach twisted over inside her and Jemma shook her head rapidly, before deciding that that had not been a good idea and taking several sharp breaths to make the world stop spinning.

'I can't,' she whispered.

There was a pause.

'Okay,' Fitz said, quietly. 'So look at me then.'

Jemma hesitated.

In principle, that probably wasn't the most logical of ideas. But there was something about it that made sense, somehow.

For some reason, Jemma could easily believe that looking at Fitz would steady her, help her keep her balance and somehow bring her safely back down to the ground.

Slowly, she turned her head to the side and looked down.

Fitz was there, looking up at her with his hands on the rope ladder. He gave her an encouraging smile and, reflexively, Jemma smiled back.

'Bring your other leg around,' Fitz instructed gently.

She did so, her leg muscles clenched, but eventually her body had twisted so that she was facing him, both her feet resting on the rope rungs of the climbing net. Jemma let out a shaky breath.

'Good.' Fitz reached up on tiptoe to pat the toe of her trainer. 'Now you need to move your hands down too...and then your feet...no, no keep looking at me...'

She was. God, she didn't ever want to stop looking at him.

As Jemma inched her way slowly down the climbing net, she looked at Fitz. It was actually a wonderful opportunity for her to stare at him, to absorb his features and imprint them to memory, without it being strange or uncomfortable. While her hands fumbled over the ropes behind her and her feet clumsily found the next rung on the net, Jemma keep her eyes fixed on her best friend and the blue of his eyes, the freckles by his ear and the curves of his lips.

It was a relief when she realised she was nearing the bottom, not only because it meant she was almost back on solid ground, but because she wasn't sure whether she could keep her grip much longer.

The thought had just occurred to her when Jemma felt her foot slip. Her palms, already slick with sweat, let go of the rope too and Jemma found herself falling forward. But Fitz was quick, and his hands came up to steady her at the waist, before he slid his arm around her back and carefully lifted her down to the ground.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' Jemma said, her voice coming out in a gasp.

'No, it's fine, it's fine,' Fitz murmured. 'You did great.'

He swallowed hard and Jemma could see his Adam's apple bob up and down in his throat. It was only then that she realised how close they were.

Fitz's hands hadn't moved from the small of her back, and she had her own hands holding onto the front of his jacket. She could feel his heart racing under her fingertips and, if she looked up, the top of her head just brushed his jawline.

It made her feel just as dizzy as she had at the top of the climbing net.

Without really thinking about what she was doing, Jemma stretched up to kiss him.

It took shockingly little effort, to bend upwards and fit her mouth to his and feel the tiny jump he gave when he felt her press on his lips. Her hand came up to cup his jaw, stroking the side of his neck with her thumb and she felt his hands move up her back to her shoulder-blades.

A shiver ran down Jemma's spine and she couldn't help letting out a little sigh.

_Yes_.

Then, abruptly, Fitz's hands fell away from her and he pulled away from the kiss, staggering slightly.

_No_.

'We should, um, probably be heading back to the bus,' Fitz said, his eyes stubbornly stuck to the ground. He stepped around her, rubbing the back of his neck. 'Like you said, they've probably already finished by now and we aren't going to...get any further...'

He stopped, and Jemma turned around to face him. Fitz's cheeks were flushed and his hands, hands that had so carefully lifted her down just minutes ago, were shaking.

There was a lump at the back of her throat that Jemma had to swallow before she responded.

'Right.' She nodded, a forced smile on her face. 'Of course.'

Fitz gave a curt nod back and sighed, before turning sharply on his heel to trudge back to the bus. Jemma balled her hands into fists before hurrying after him; he was walking so quickly she had to double her stride to match his.

She remained half a step behind him right up to the doors of the bus, where the other cadets were just starting to re-board. There was a hollow feeling in Jemma's stomach as she sank back down into her seat by the window, Fitz quiet beside her, and she couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was missing.

It was only as the coach lurched away from the clearing that Jemma realised what was wrong and why she felt so adrift.

Fitz wasn't holding her hand anymore.

 

 


	5. and so it all boils down to this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should have scared her how deeply dependent she had become on his touch, but Jemma's brain barely even registered that. At that moment, all she could focus on was how much she missed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final (proper) chapter! I had hoped to have the epilogue up tomorrow night for you, but it's my leaver's dinner for my sixth form college so I don't think it will be happening then, sorry. Friday for definite, though!
> 
> This one is quite possibly my favourite chapter, so I hope you all like it as well!

As soon as the coach pulled up back at the hotel, Fitz vanished.

Jemma stumbled off the bus in a half daze, but he had disappeared, swallowed up by the chatter of cadets and the deafening buzz of busy activity that only S.H.I.E.L.D could produce. Her palms still feeling horribly empty without his hand to hold. It should have scared her how deeply dependent she had become on his touch, but Jemma's brain barely even registered that. At that moment, all she could focus on was how much she missed it.

She drifted through the hotel miserably, her mind still stuck at the bottom of the climbing net with her heart in her mouth and his lips on hers.

Fitz wasn't in the dining room, not the hotel lounge, though many of the other cadets were. As Jemma watched from the doorway, she saw Mick and Sally again. They were tucked up in the same armchair with their limbs intertwined so much that she couldn't tell what belonged to who. Jemma turned away, suddenly sickened.

It had been a mistake, to kiss Fitz like that. She realised that now, with a horribly bitter taste in her mouth like his tongue had tasted of petrol.

It was one thing to kiss him in plain sight of all the other cadets, cadets they were trying to convince of their 'relationship', and to insist on kissing alone in their hotel room for practising purposes. But it was another thing entirely to kiss him for so reason whatsoever.

Because Fitz, evidently, had _hated_ it.

Jemma took the stairs up to their room, her feet feeling like blocks of concrete on each step. She fished her door key out of her pocket to unlock the door and jolted backwards as she pushed it open.

'Oh!'

Fitz was standing over their beds, seeming just as startled to see her as she did to see him. Which was ridiculous, of both of them, because they were sharing the same room.

'I couldn't find you,' Jemma stuttered. 'When we got off the bus. I didn't...I couldn't find you.'

Fitz seemed to stare straight past her for a moment before snapping back to the present and turning his head away from her.

'I, um, wanted to freshen up.'

'Oh.' Jemma nodded. 'Um, yes. Me too.'

Fitz gave her a curt nod back and bent towards the beds as Jemma shuffled across the room towards the bathroom. She turned back sharply when she heard him give a grunt, though, and her eyebrows shot up.

'Fitz, what are you doing with...' She gestured towards him. ...Your bed?'

'Ugh.' He groaned again, and dropped the end of his bed back to the ground from where he had lifted it. 'I am, uh, separating them. Our beds.'

'Oh. Right.'

Jemma nodded slowly, her heart starting to beat faster. Fitz moved to the side of his bed to try and lift it again.

'Um,' she began, 'Why are you doing that? I thought you said we should...'

'I know what I said,' he retorted, his back still facing her. 'But there's only one night left and the cleaners aren't going to come in anymore so...there's no need...for us to...'

He trailed off, and slipped inside the gap between their two beds to push his further away from hers. For some reason, it made Jemma's chest ache to watch the distance grow.

She rubbed her palms together anxiously.

'Fitz...about...about what happened...'

'It doesn't matter, Jemma,' he muttered, his eyes still dropped low. 'The weekend's nearly over, Agent Weaver's coming to collect us tomorrow morning. I hope you've been satisfied by your little experiment.'

'Experi-'

She had forgotten, until he had mentioned it, what she had likened their pretending to be a couple to. Now, the turn of phrase sounded horribly clinical and bitter when he said it, too bitter for what it had ended up being.

Jemma suddenly found that she was blinking back tears.

'Well, there's still one evening left,' she said, forcing her voice to sound cheerful. She moved across the room towards him, until she was so close she could see the veins pulsing on the back of him neck. 'When we go down to dinner-'

'I, um, don't think I'll be going to dinner,' Fitz said, abruptly jerking away from her side and striding across the room. 'I'm not hungry.'

He was lying to her, Jemma realised with a shock.

Fitz was always hungry.

A sudden flare of hot anger pulsed in her chest and Jemma clenched her fingers into fists.

'Fitz, if you don't want to do this anymore,' she said hotly. 'Then you just have to say-'

'Alright.'

The word was like a brick, catching her own words before they were fully out of her mouth and sinking them like a stone.

Jemma sucked in a sharp breath. 'What?'

'I don't want to do it anymore.' Fitz was standing over his suitcase, fiddling with the buttons on a shirt fruitlessly and avoiding her eyes. 'I don't...I _can't_ do it anymore.'

'You could do it perfectly fine this morning,' Jemma remarked, hot tears burning at the back of her throat.

'Well, yeah, maybe I could but...'

'But what?'

'But it's _hard_ , alright?' Finally, he spun around to face her and Jemma was startled by the sight of tears in his eyes too. 'It's really bloody hard and I'm tired.'

For a moment, Jemma found herself unable to move, rendered utterly speechless; but then the anger returned to her, hot and heavy.

'Oh, well, I'm sorry that having to act _romantically_ interested in me is such a chore for you,' she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

Fitz slammed the lid of his suitcase down. 'And _I'm_ sorry that you're cold enough to use your best friend as a fucking experiment!'

Jemma gasped.

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. She froze to the spot, her fingers digging into the skin of her arms hard, but she could barely register the pain. She was still trying to process what he had just said.

Fitz had stopped too, his chest heaving, and when he met her eyes across the room she recognised the shock that was there too, as he realised he had gone too far and hit too hard.

Inside her, Jemma felt something fracture.

'I'm going for a walk,' Fitz muttered abruptly, dropping her gaze and crossing the room.

Jemma kept her arms hugged tightly across her chest and her head down, in a vain attempt to hide her imminent tears.

Through the folds of her hair, she heard Fitz struggle with his shoes, before fumbling for the door handle.

'I'm...going to...'

He left the sentence unfinished and the door slammed shut, the sound of it reverberating through the echoing silence of the bedroom.

Jemma let out a strangled sob, immediately bring up a hand to clamp over her mouth to smother the sound. The tears that she had tried so hard to keep in were falling freely now, trickling onto her cheeks and down her arms like raindrops, and she found her body heaving as she tried to keep her sobs inside.

Her body sank to the ground and she hugged her knees to her chest, allowing her gasping cries to seep into the material of her leggings as she screwed her eyes shut.

Oh God, what had she _done_?

_Cold_.

The word was playing on a loop inside her head, pounding through her brain and prickling through her bloodstream like it was poison made especially for her.

He thought she was _cold._

Callous.

Cruel.

Calculated.

He thought that she hadn't been thinking about how he was feeling, that she didn't care. That she had only been using him, as a specimen for an _experiment_ (she hated that word now, she wished she had never thought it, never used it) and that she hadn't cared about how much he'd been obviously hating it.

But then again, _hadn't_ that been what she had done?

She had been worse than cold, Jemma realised in horror. She had been _selfish_.

The thought brought a fresh wave of tears springing to her eyes.

The sound of several sharp raps at the door made her jump; Jemma inhaled a little too quickly so she choked on her tears and had to cough. Hastily, she pulled the sleeve of her jumper across her face, blotting out the tears, and scrambled to her feet, taking a few more shallow breaths in an attempt to quell her crying.

She already had a firm idea of who was standing on the other side of the door.

When she pulled it open, Fitz was standing on the threshold, looking down at her, and his face was pulled taunt.

'I forgot my key,' he mumbled, gesturing to the door by way of explanation for why he hadn't just let himself in.

In spite of herself, Jemma rolled her eyes a little and opened the door wider.

Fitz took a deep breath and stepped inside, barrelling past her to the centre of the room. Jemma shut the door again, her heart thudding. When she turned back towards him, Fitz was pacing back and forth across the carpet, rubbing his palms together.

'I'm sorry,' he blurted out once he realised she was watching. 'God, I'm...I'm so, so sorry, that was a terrible thing for me to say...'

Jemma shook her head, wordlessly. 'It's al-'

'No, it's not!' Fitz stopped pacing and took a step towards her. 'It's not. It was wrong of me and it's not true, either. And I'm honestly so sorry.'

He meant it as well; she could see that from his eyes.

Fitz took in another gulp of air.

'But the other thing I said...that was true.'

Jemma swallowed back the lump in her throat and nodded.

'I know,' she whispered. 'And I'm sorry too. About making you do this, and ev-everything that went with it.' She bit her lip, remembering how his mouth had felt pressed up against it. 'Like the kissing. Especially that, actually. I should have realised how much you'd hate it...'

''Hate it?' Fitz was staring at her, his mouth open. 'Oh no, no. No, Jemma, you've got it all wrong...'

Jemma frowned, blinking twice. 'What?'

Fitz sighed.

'I wasn't lying,' he said very slowly, as if he was selecting each word with meticulous care. 'When I said that this weekend...that pretending to be your boyfriend has been hard. Because it has. It's been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.'

The tears were back, clumping together on her eyelids and swimming her vision.

'But not because I hated it.'

Jemma fought her way through the tears in surprise until she could see Fitz, standing across from her. He looking at her, with eyes full of honesty and desperation and something else, something raw and that made her insides turn over on themselves.

'Because I don't _want_ to be pretending,' Fitz said in a rush, like it was the end of a breath he had been holding in. 'I don't want to pretend to be your boyfriend and I don't want to pretend to kiss you because I don't want to pretend. I want it to be real.'

'Oh.'

It was all Jemma could think of to say.

'I couldn't say anything,' he continued, and the pain in his voice made her chest ache. 'Because this whole thing was my stupid idea and I didn't want you to think that I had done it to...to _force_ you into doing anything, but I couldn't help it, and somewhere along the way I sort of...stopped...pretending.'

Jemma could hear every beat her heart took, pulsing through her body.

'When you were...when we were kissing,' she whispered. 'That was real? You...you felt...'

Fitz nodded and his shoulders sagged.

'Yeah,' he croaked. 'Jemma, I'm so so-'

It took her three strides to cross the room towards him and wrap her arms around his neck to pull him down to kiss her.

The sudden weight of her body against his made Fitz stumble backwards, but then it was only seconds before his hands were around her waist, pushing himself back upright so he could pull her closer, kiss her deeper. Jemma closed her eyes as she felt him sigh into her, and allowed her body to move itself upwards so she could kiss him again.

Before, their kisses had only been fragments, fractured pieces of potential that had slipped through her fingers like shattered glass.

This, Jemma realised, was the full picture.

The currents of electricity she had felt in her veins when they had kissed before filled her again, but they was softer this time, sparks of light that made it feel more like her limbs had been filled with sunlight and she was burning from the inside out.

As Fitz's lips moved hers did too, her teeth teasing along the inside of his mouth, the sensation sending shiver after shiver running down her spine.

When they broke away, neither of them went very far; Jemma let her hands slide down to rest on Fitz's chest, while he let his linger on either side of her hips.

'Wow,' Fitz breathed, his eyes shining.

'Yeah, wow,' Jemma agreed.

'Was that...um?'

'Real. Very.'

'Oh.' He exhaled, relieved. 'Right, good.'

Jemma just had time to take in the delighted grin on Fitz's face before he had brought his hand up to cup her cheek and was kissing her again.

Eagerly, Jemma let him, her hands gripping at his shirt and her feet reaching up on tiptoes so that their mouths could fit together. Her two words to him seemed to have filled Fitz with some confidence she had never known he possessed and he was holding her to him with such a gentle strength Jemma felt like her knees were about to give way.

It was dizzying, kissing.

But kissing Fitz was a dizziness she never wanted to stop feeling.

It felt like quite a long time before they pulled away again, but really, it could have been any length of time. Jemma felt like she was existing in a limbo that consisted only of herself, of Fitz and the gentle pressure of his forehead leaning against hers while they both tried to get their breath back.

'How long?' Fitz asked, hesitantly, after their heavy breathing had subsided enough for him to speak. 'How long have you felt...?'

'I don't know,' Jemma whispered. 'A while, I suppose, but I don't think I ever really felt that I could do something about it.'

When Fitz's eyes widened, she felt the need to explain.

'I didn't think I could say anything because you always seemed so, well, _horrified_ whenever anyone thought there was something going on between us so I always just assumed you didn't feel like that...'

Fitz cut her off with a groan and his hands slid down her arms to hold her wrists, his thumbs delicately rubbing her skin in soft circles.

'I only acted like that because I thought you wouldn't...that you couldn't...'

This time, it was her turn to cock her head in confusion.

'I'm nothing like Adam Wheeler,' he admitted. 'Or any of the other guys from the boiler room.'

'Meaning what?' Jemma demanded.

' _Meaning_ that I thought it would be ridiculous for you to ever be interested in me like you were interested in them.' Fitz sighed and his shoulders sagged. 'And I thought that _you_ would be offended at any insinuation of us being more than friends.'

This time, it was Jemma's turn to groan.

_Oh, Fitz_.

Carefully, she manoeuvred her hands up so she was tilting his face towards her.

'You're an idiot,' she told him severely.

'I was pretty sure we'd established that a long time ago, but continue.'

'You might not be like Adam Wheeler, or the others,' Jemma told him. 'But in case you hadn't noticed, _they_ aren't _you_ , either. And that's what matters to me. You being...you.'

Fitz grinned. 'Oh, really?'

'Yeah, really.'

She kissed him again, lightly on the lips, and felt a thrill to think that now she could do that anywhere, whenever she wanted.

'Even when I'm being an idiot?'

His grin was pressed against her lips and Jemma could feel it seeping inside her and making her smile too.

' _Especially_ when you're being an idiot.' She looked up, so she could rub her nose back and forth against his. 'Because you're _my_ idiot.'

'And you're mine.' Fitz frowned. 'Well, not my _idiot_ , obviously, because you're not an idiot, not even close...'

'Fitz...'

'...And that's also not me saying that you're 'mine' as if you belong to me, because I am well aware that women are not possessions and should not be treated that way...'

' _Fitz_...'

'What I think I am trying to say,' he managed eventually. 'Is that you're my best friend. Always.'

Jemma smiled, feeling a warm, golden glow ebbing through her bones and spreading through her blood.

'I know,' she whispered and tilted her face up so he could kiss her again.

Fitz's lips fitted to hers with an ease she would not have imagined they could three days ago, and yet the feeling of them being there still sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach and her heart dancing inside her chest.

It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

'I know.'

 

 

Seeing as Fitz had already dragged their beds apart, it would have been ridiculous to go to all the trouble of pushing them back.

The most logical solution, therefore, was to not.

Jemma hovered in the doorway of the bathroom, her fingers playing anxiously with the fabric of her pyjama bottoms. She was watching Fitz sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, chewing on the end of a pencil as he worked at a crossword puzzle.

It was strangely endearing, the way his brows were furrowed together and the slight unruly ruffle of his hair. At any rate, it certainly made her breath catch in her throat.

When Fitz glanced up and spotted her watching him he gave a shy smile, his whole face lighting up along with it. Jemma smiled back, feeling her heart quicken.

She moved lightly across their bedroom floor towards his bed. Hastily, Fitz dropped his crossword down the side of the bed and shuffled across to make room for her.

'D' you want another blanket?' he asked anxiously, pulled an extra one out from behind him as she sat down on the mattress.

Jemma shook her head, touched by how careful he was being.

'No, but thank you.'

'Ah. Good, okay.'

Fitz nodded, and dropped the blanket down to join his crossword puzzle on the floor.

Jemma let herself lie back on his pillow as Fitz tugged the sheet up and over the both of them before joining her.

'Have you got enough room?'

'Oh yes, plenty.'

'Enough cover?'

She gave him a wry smile. 'Fitz, I'm _fine_.'

Already, they had managed to fit inside one another; Fitz had tucked his arm behind her head and their bodies were turned in towards the other so that their knees were touching.

'Okay, good.' His hand was twined with her hair, teasing it through his fingers. 'As long as you're alright.'

His breath was warm on the top of her head and, as Jemma moved her head to fit into the space between the pillow and his neck, she found that Fitz's whole body was warm. His arms, as he held her ever so gently, were too, as was his chest, which she found herself resting against.

This kind of physical closeness was not new, she knew that. But it felt new all the same; it felt new and exciting and held infinite promises of potential.

It felt, Jemma decided with a sudden thrill of decisiveness, like everything she had ever wanted.

It felt like _them_.

Fitz propped himself up on his elbow and reached across her to turn off the light. As he lay back down, he hesitated for a second before pressing a kiss onto the top of her nose.

'Night, Jemma.'

'Night, Fitz.'

She bridged the slither of space they had left between them and kissed him on the lips. Through the darkness, she could feel him smiling at her before letting out a deeply contented sigh and nuzzling his head into the pillow.

Jemma waited, breathing evenly in the dark, until Fitz's breathing had grown even and he was snoring lightly.

'I love you,' she whispered, and those three words seemed to fill the whole of the world.

 


	6. epilogue: love like fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Fitz's hands came up to cup her face and twine in her hair, Jemma felt the now familiar tug in her gut, reminding her that she needed to be closer to him, greedily telling her that she wanted more.

Jemma stuck her hand up in the air, her first finger pointing deliberately towards the ceiling.

'Agent Archer, may I go to the bathroom, please?'

The elderly Southern agent raised his head from his marking with a bemused expression.

'Miss Simmons, I would have thought after six months in my classroom y'all would be aware of my bathroom policies. Namely, I do not have them because my students have enough sense to use the restrooms before they come to class.'

Having prepared for this response, Jemma pulled her best apologetic face. 'I am aware of that, sir, and I am very sorry, but I was hoping you would be able to make an exception. Just this once?'

She sat up a little straighter, giving her professor a radiant smile as she saw him wavering.

Agent Archer made a deep tutting noise, but jerked his head towards the door of the lab anyway.

'You have five minutes,' he told her seriously, as Jemma eagerly stripped off her lab coat to scurry towards the door. 'I don't suppose you have any idea why Mr. Fitz decided not to grace us with his presence this morning, do you?'

'I believe he's ill, sir,' Jemma said smoothly, as she hovered by her professor's desk on her way out. 'Or at least, that's what he texted me this morning.'

'Hrumph.' Agent Archer's grunt of dissent made it clear he did not consider illness a suitable excuse for missing his laboratory class. 'Well, run along then.'

Jemma left the lab and began to hurry down the corridor, her feet quickening in time with the excited beats of her heart. She had only just turned the corner out of sight of the lab when a hand shot out of a storage cupboard and wrapped itself around her wrist. She didn't even have time to yelp before the owner of the hand had dragged her inside and shut the door behind her.

' _Fitz_!'

'Hi,' he said, breathlessly, and bent his head to kiss her.

It had been three weeks since the first time he had done it and Jemma was still amazed by how dizzying the sensation she got when he did was. Her body responded eagerly, surging forward onto her tiptoes and opening her mouth to his touch, sighing into him with an easy delight. There was a thrill in her stomach as she felt his arms loop around her waist to hold her to him, rocking them from side to side.

In the three weeks since they had returned to the Academy from the conference, she and Fitz had continued to pretend. Now, though, they were not pretending to be dating. Now, they were pretending to _not_ be dating. They had both agreed that it would be for the best, at least for a little while.

Hopefully, Jemma thought as she enjoyed the feel of her boyfriend's mouth against her own, they wouldn't be pretending much longer.

'I got your text,' she said, once they had moved far enough apart for her to get the words out. 'To meet you outside the lab. What's wrong?'

'Hmm, what? Nothing, nothing's wrong.'

Fitz kissed her again, humming happily.

Gently, Jemma pushed against his chest to pull them apart.

'Leopold Fitz, if I get sick because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself...'

'Oh, no, no. I'm not sick, that was just a cover.'

Jemma narrowed her eyes at him. 'I'm sorry, did you pull a sickie so you could skip Archer's class?'

'Technically, yes.' Seeing the disapproving look in her eyes, he hastened to add: 'But, I have a very good reason for it.'

'Oh, I'm all ears.'

'I had a project that needed finishing. And besides,' he gave her a wry smile, 'I can always copy up your notes later.'

Jemma scoffed, raising an eyebrow. 'Oh, _can_ you, now?'

'Well, I'm hoping you won't be able to resist letting me once I give you this.'

From his back pocket, Fitz produced a carefully assembled package wrapped in newspaper and held it out towards her. Jemma stared at it, then up at Fitz's nervous smile.

'What's this?'

'Shh, just open it,' he replied, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet with suppressed excitement.

Biting her bottom lip to hide her smile, Jemma began to peel away the newspaper from the package, her heart jumping. As the last layer fell away to reveal its contains, she gasped.

'Fitz...'

Tentatively, Jemma reached inside the nest of newspaper to lift up the necklace that was curled up inside. With one trembling finger, she lifted the silver chain up so that the metal caught the light of the bulb above them and the glass conical flasks on the shelves around them and winked, prettily.

'So?' Fitz still had his hands linked together in the small of her back and was gently swaying her. 'What do you think?'

Jemma shook her head, speechless.

'Did you make this?' she whispered. 'For me?'

Fitz nodded and ducked his head, suddenly shy. 'Uh, yeah. It's not real silver, I'm afraid, just copper alloyed with zinc. It's called alpaca, actually, which is quite a funny name, but really it's a good substitute, don't you think?'

Jemma twirled the necklace in her fingertips, taking in the tiny loops of the chain and the pretty pendant hanging from it, still at a complete loss for words. That he had gone to all this trouble _for her_ made her feel almost as dizzy as his kisses did.

'So?' Fitz looked up and gave her a nervous grin. 'Do you like it?'

Making sure the necklace would not be caught in the crush, Jemma lurched forward to wrap her free arm around Fitz's neck to press a series of delighted kisses to his cheek, then his jaw and then, finally, his lips.

'I love it,' she breathed. 'It's the most beautiful think I've ever seen.'

'Ah.' Fitz's cheeks were tinged pink. 'Good. Good, I'm glad.'

'But...what prompted this? It's not my birthday, Christmas was _months_ ago...'

'I wanted to,' Fitz said, simply, and that appeared to be enough reason for him.

His readiness to make her such a beautiful piece of jewellery just _because_ made Jemma's heart flutter.

Fitz motioned towards the necklace. 'Allow me?'

She let him take it from her hand and unfasten the clasp, before carefully reaching around the back of her neck to refasten it. Once his hands had fallen away again, Jemma let her fingers play with the pendant, rubbing it back and forth reverently, while she marvelled at the craftsmanship.

'It's perfect,' she said, reaching up to loop her arms back around his neck. 'Thank you, Fitz.'

She kissed him, letting her lips linger on his, before kissing him again, then again, and again. As Fitz's hands came up to cup her face and twine in her hair, Jemma felt the now familiar tug in her gut, reminding her that she needed to be closer to him, greedily telling her that she wanted _more_.

They stumbled backwards, so that Jemma's back was pressed to the wall, keeping them both upright.

'How long...' Fitz gasped between kisses, 'how long did Archer give you for the bathroom break?'

As his hands began to roam under the silky fabric of her shirt, Jemma suppressed a moan at the mention of their professor.

'Five minutes.'

'Don't you think you ought t'be getting back, then?'

How the bloody hell did he expect her to go back to the classroom and act naturally after _this_?

'No,' Jemma said, decisively. 'I don't think so at all.'

'Oh?' Fitz pulled back, raising an eyebrow at her. 'You don't?'

She shook her head. 'Absolutely not. Because I've decided something.'

'And what have you decided?'

'Today,' Jemma declared. 'We are most definitely doin' some fraternisin'...on S.H.I.E.L.D's time.'

Her Southern accent, as it turned out, was frankly dreadful.

Fitz burst out laughing, and moved his hands under her arms to boost her further up the wall so that her legs could wrap around his and she was looking into his eyes.

'I love you,' he said, and the words were as raw, honest and wonderful as he was.

Jemma wanted to wear them as a stamp on her heart.

'I know,' she said happily and kissed him again.

'And I love you too.'

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly cannot remember where I read the headcanon that Fitz made Jemma's necklace for her but just know that it is not mine, just one I've adopted. If anyone knows who the original poster of that headcanon is, I would love to know so I can credit them properly for it!
> 
> And that's the end! Thank you so much to everyone who has read this, and especially to you lovely people who left comments on every single chapter. Reading those kind messages meant so much to me, I cannot thank you enough for them. I am so glad you enjoyed reading this!


End file.
